The i&i Members Community Network Meeting helped attendees towards building capability within their organisation by providing actionable insights into how Continuous Improvement (CI) programmes can efficiently and successfully progress from deployment to ‘Business As Usual’: where the principles and ideas of CI are ingrained within the company.
i&i designed the meeting to provide working examples and best practice to help programme leaders make the shift in focus and strategy required to build a sustainable CI programme whilst demonstrating significant business benefits. A pre-defined Maturity Model was used to design the agenda and as a baseline for discussions. The model defined the different stages a programme may go through.
Feedback captured at the end of the meeting demonstrated that attendees learned about:
- Identifying the position of their organisation on the “Maturity Curve”
- The key characteristics of organisations in all stages of Maturity
- The opportunities and lessons learned from organisation who have progressed up the curve towards ‘Business As Usual’
- The importance of Process Ownership and how to create a Process Ownership manual
- Process Architecture and capability development
- Different approaches to solving maturity problems
- Various techniques for managing/influencing stakeholders
- Opportunities to build capability through hearing the experiences of other organisations.
- Measurement in real time
In terms of the usefulness of the meeting in achieving their personal business goals, some of the feedback captured included:
“Very useful, excellent calibre of insight and experience from attendees”
“Excellent presentation from keynote speakers. Great insight.”
“Very valuable. Good opportunity for learning and networking.”
“Very useful. Like minded people. Various experience and maturity of programmes. Stop you making mistakes that others may have made.”
“Very informative, good contacts and follow up opportunities.”
“This was one of the best yet. 2 very good sessions in the morning followed by a genuinely interactive session with useful output.”
The first session introduced the wide variety of people and organisations in the room, and captured their goals and expectations for the day.
That was followed by a presentation and Q&A session with Bruce Reekie, of Standard Life. Bruce talked about his experiences in creating a process-focused CI deployment that sought to think horizontally instead of vertically through silos. Key lessons were shared on how to drive end-to-end process improvement on a group-wide basis with a robust and highly visible process architecture, including how to get accountability at all levels, active leadership and a customer-focused mindset. This topic was timely for Standard Life; Bruce and his team are working on transforming the business through reorganisation and management of the process architecture, where maturity and ownership are key factors.
Using effective Knowledge Management to create a solid framework for growth was one of the themes touched upon by Phil Roberts of the General Medical Council in his presentation. Looking at the early stages of Maturity from a transactional point of view, the GMC have instigated a Registration Excellence Programme that focuses on “Right First Time” and in so doing helps create a platform for sustainable change by engaging the frontline teams and middle managers. Phil shared the details of the successes of the programme so far in creating senior manager buy-in and preparing the organisation for the next stage in the CI journey.
Experiences and lessons learned from a more mature programme were provided by Peter Evans of Virgin Media. Peter explained that in order to embed change within an organisation, it is important that it is facilitated through engaging the “hearts and minds” of the organisation by sharing journeys, successes and experiences. Change cannot be sustained and effectively managed simply by implementing a toolkit. The tools required are governed by the situational circumstances not the training manual and the chosen methodology.
Peter went on to share a model that described each of the pieces of their operational excellence journey, a scoping tool which allows them to score every part of the organisation, and a transformation plan designed to identify the right tools to use for improvement; tools that help the people within the business articulate where they are and what needs to be done. Peter was then joined by two members of his team, John Ettles and John Dowley, who shared further experiences in creating a sustainable change programme that is well positioned to become “Business As Usual”.
In between the presentations, attendees were engaged in a fast-paced, interactive workshop session facilitated by Victor Newman of the University of Greenwich. Victor led a fast “Baton-Passing” workshop designed to help the attendees identify where their organisation sits in the Maturity Model, identify the opportunities and lessons learned during each stage, and learn some of the ways to overcome the challenges each stage presents.
Participants:
1. Identified the current location of their business or business unit in the Maturity Model.
2. Outlined shareable lessons learned from their experience, and where they applied within the Maturity Model
3. Grouped shareable lessons and insights into Lesson Themes, and then drafted useable lessons with key points and outcomes involved in applying them.
The workshop was useful for attendees to learn about developing people in line with processes, capturing knowledge gained from individual projects as well as programmes, understanding that different parts of the business can be at different stages of maturity, and more.
A lot of valuable knowledge was captured during the workshop from the wealth of experience in the room. Members of the network will receive a full report that will include full details of these lessons, as well as extensive notes and the presentation slides. As part of the value that i&i provides to its members, a number of follow on meetings have been organised to expand upon the connections that were made during the day, and facilitate the further exchange of knowledge and experience. This is part of i&i’s bespoke schedule of works that are aligned with the tactical and strategic objectives of its members.
The meeting was attended by representatives of AstraZeneca UK Limited, BAA Airports, BP International, British Airways, British Gas, Electrocomponents, First Data Corporation, General Medical Council, Legal&General, Lloyds TSB, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Maersk, Nokia Services, Royal Mail Group, SCA Hygiene, Virgin Media and Zurich.
